The sexual life of woman in its physiological, pathological and hygienic aspectsKisch, E. Heinrich (Enoch Heinrich)
Science
The sexual life of woman in its physiological, pathological and hygienic aspects
Kisch, E. Heinrich (Enoch Heinrich)
Gynecology; Menstruation; Women -- Diseases
Pregnancy favors the occurrence of chorea, a circumstance explicable by
the increased irritability of certain nerve centres characteristic of
the pregnant woman. The chorea of pregnancy occurs for the most part in
primiparæ, it is commoner in young than in older pregnant women, and
appears especially in the early months of pregnancy. In the majority of
cases the disease undergoes spontaneous cure before the end of the
pregnancy, but cases with a fatal termination have been observed.
On the other hand, a curative influence in previously subsisting
hysteria has been assigned to pregnancy. This in fact only occurs in
cases in which the hysterical manifestations have been evoked by
influences which are counteracted or removed by the occurrence of
pregnancy, such, for instance, as intense longing to bear a child,
dissatisfaction with the existing circumstances of married life, etc.
Conversely, it is by no means unusual to observe that, in patients who
have previously suffered from hysteria, the attacks become more frequent
during pregnancy, and that other nervous disturbances associated with
the hysteria become more prominent; hysterical paralysis, even, may
appear. Very variable also is the influence of pregnancy in epileptics.
Most commonly, indeed, a certain quiescence sets in, the attacks
becoming less frequent and less severe; but the reverse of this is at
times observed. In the domain of the sense organs we observe amblyopia
and hemianopia, deafness, and tinnitus aurium, and disorders of taste;
all these appear as pure nervous disturbances without known anatomical
basis (_Windscheid_).
Finally, among neuroses, tetany may be mentioned. In women, this disease
occurs almost exclusively during pregnancy and the puerperal state, in
the form of paroxysmal spasm, affecting chiefly the extremities, and
especially the hands; the spasm is bilateral, tonic in character, and
painful. The tetany of pregnancy usually runs a favourable course.
The slighter forms of mental disorder consist of perversions of taste
and smell. Of actual psychoses occurring during pregnancy, the commonest
forms are melancholia and mania. The former condition, which, according
to _Ripping_, occurs in 84.4 per cent. of the cases, is usually very
severe, and is characterized by a peculiar dreamy condition; it often
leads to suicide, or to infanticide immediately after parturition. The
psychoses of pregnancy are seen with greater frequency in the second
half of pregnancy, they occur especially in primiparæ, and are also
commoner in unmarried women. The prognosis is on the whole an
unfavorable one; sometimes, indeed, the mental disorder terminates with
the pregnancy, but in other cases it continues during the puerperium.
Mental alienation occurring in the early months of pregnancy is apt to
be less severe and to permit of a more favorable prognosis, than that
which makes its appearance during the later months or at the end of the
pregnancy.
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